Matthews annoyed by recent losses

DALLAS – Wesley Matthews has seen the Dallas Mavericks falter so much the last two games that he finally admitted "it’s annoying.’’

One night after losing by 24 points Friday night in Miami, the Mavs came home and practically slept-walked through a 105-98 loss to the hapless New Orleans Pelicans on Saturday night. The Mavs were so inconsistent and so lifeless that the sellout crowd of 20,152 barely had anything to cheer about.

Hence, the "its annoying’’ comment from Matthews.

"We didn’t play well in Miami, we didn’t play well in too many stretches here (Saturday),’’ Matthews said. "To be where we want to be and to be who we know we can be, we have to pick it up.

"We have to leave it all on the court every single night.’’

That certainly didn’t happen against the Pelicans, who have the fourth-worst record in the NBA, yet two of their 11 victories are against the Mavs.

What makes these last two nights a head-scratcher is the fact that the Mavs (19-15) just handed the world champion Golden State Warriors their second defeat of the season last Wednesday with convincing 114-91 fashion. Granted, the Warriors played without all-world guard Steph Curry.

But the point is the Mavs know they’re not as bad as they’ve looked the past two nights in losing to the Heat and the Pelicans. Especially after they looked so flawless while taking down the Warriors.

"Well, you know that’s the NBA for you,’’ said Dirk Nowitzki, who scored 24 points on 8-of-21 shooting. "Sometimes it seems like you can’t win one and you go on a little streak, and it could be the other way around, too.

"You win a couple and you feel good about yourself, and within 24 hours it feels like you hit rock bottom. That’s how it is in this league.

"We weren’t very good last night. I thought tonight we were good in stretches, but not overall, just not good enough.’’

The Mavs shot 43.4 percent from the field and were a respectable 10 of 25 from 3-point enrage for 40 percent. But they got hammered on the boards, losing that battle, 53-33.

"This is a six-month all-out fight in this league,’’ coach Rick Carlisle said. "You’ve got to be undistracted to get your share of wins, and tonight I thought early the ball not going in on some good looks distracted us, took us out of the fight mode slightly.

"Again, it wasn’t that we weren’t trying, it wasn’t that we weren’t playing hard. I thought they came at us a little hard.’’

The Pelicans shot 48.2 percent form the field and got 31 points and 14 rebounds from All-Star forward Anthony Davis, Jrue Holiday also scored 20 points for New Orleans, and Eric Gordon, Norris Cole and Ryan Anderson tallied 16 points apiece for the 11-22 Pelicans.

"Defensively, we didn’t come up with the timely stops,’’ Matthews said. "We can’t be an offense-driven team.

"We need to be a team that gets our stuff going from the defensive end and let that be our offense.’’

Matthews didn’t know specifically what was going wrong on defense for the MNavs.

"We’ll have to look at it, watch the game and see the plays from tonight,’’ he said. "It’s hard to say.

"I’m not sure, but whatever it is we have to figure it out. We have figured it out. It’s just a matter of doing it.’’

The biggest lead the Mavs had in Saturday’s game was one point. The last time they led was 51-50 with nine minutes left in the third quarter on a layup by Zaza Pachulia.

From there, particularly during crunch time, the Pelicans made more big-time plays than the Mavs. That includes a layup by Holiday, who blew by J. J. Barea and scored on a layup for a 103-98 lead with 10.9 seconds left.

"They had a great third quarter, we weren’t really sharp on either end and couldn’t really much going on the offensive end and couldn’t get any stops,’’ Nowitzki said. "But we hung in there and kept fighting.

"Just a tough one down the stretch – it could have gone either way. But you’ve got to give them credit. They’re team that obviously is better than their record shows, they’ve got a lot of talent, they’re getting healthier and they deserved to win this game.’’

Dwain Price can be heard every Wednesday from 3-4 p.m. on dfwiradio.com

This story was originally published January 2, 2016 at 11:58 PM with the headline "Matthews annoyed by recent losses."